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| #FOR FANS OF: Black/Death |
Apolaustic is a Swiss project that was created just last year. It is the new side project of the musician Romain, who is part of the full-band Stortregn, an interesting group with some similarities, particularly in its early days, to the style that Apolaustic delivers. The good references and the promising demo tracks convinced the Indian label Transcending Obscurity Records to release the first opus of this Swiss project, which is always a safe bet as this label has a sharp eye for quality bands.
'No Plenitude Without Suffering' is the name of the first opus released by Apolaustic, and it contains seven tracks and a short instrumental where Romain shows his love for a melody-driven extreme metal approach. Although the compositions are made by himself, the execution of the guitars and drums has been carried out by some Swiss collaborators who have done a perfectly solid job bringing Romain’s ideas to reality in the recording of this album. The production of this album is very solid, with vocals and instruments sounding perfectly balanced and clear. I like the fact that none of them overshadow the work of the others, which makes the whole thing sound powerful. All the tracks are entirely rooted in the melodic black metal genre, although I personally consider they tend to sound a bit closer to black metal. Personal considerations aside, what is clear here is that there is great work on the guitars, whose melodies throughout the album are excellent. There is a respectable amount of variety in the riffs and harmonies that make this opus quite a fun listen. As happens with other albums of this subgenre, Apolaustic has given some room for acoustic-esque guitars and nice guitar solos, which truly shine every time they are included. You don’t need to go too far in this album, as the initial tracks, "Devouring the Past" and "Fragments from a Misty Journey" are a fine example of it. These tracks are remarkably fast-driven, and the guitars create a good range of different melodies, both in the rhythm and the solo ones. No matter how speedy the tracks are, the absence of pace changes is never an issue, which I appreciate. This subgenre has always had a defining tendency to create pace-varied tracks, and thankfully Apolaustic does not fail in this aspect. Thanks to this, the ups and downs are constant and reinforce the sense of listening to an energetic, yet varied track.
As we approach the final part of the album, I praise the fact that the consistency of this album does not slow down. In fact, tracks like "Black Flame Reviver" or "De Feu et de Cendre" are among the best ones. The first one is probably the most interesting as it has a very dynamic structure and some nice surprises, such as the very enjoyable saxophone part included, which adds a touch of originality to an already superb composition.
In conclusion, Apolaustic’s excellent debut effort, 'No Plenitude Without Suffering', is an inspired example of melodic black metal’s strongest and most defining aspects, and it will surely please the fans of the genre. A very promising start for a project that hopefully will deliver more in the future. (Alain González Artola)
(Transcending Obscurity Records - 2026)
Score: 84